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[Back to index of September 2007 articles] Pentagon's Episcopalians Make Time for Prayer By Lucy Chumbley On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, John Symons was sitting at his desk in the Pentagon’s outermost ring when he heard a “big thud – and I knew what had happened.” So he shut down his computer, turned off the coffee machine and the lights, closed up his office and left the building. The next day, Symons – a contractor systems analyst who is a parishioner at St. John’s, Norwood – was back at his desk in the still-burning building. The Pentagon, which continued to smolder for five days, was filled with acrid smoke. But just after noon, as was his custom, Symons made his way through the wide corridors to room 5B1059, the small auditorium where the Pentagon Episcopal Community had gathered each Wednesday since 1987 to celebrate the Eucharist. “I wasn’t sure who would be there,” he said. “But I set up, and [Lt. Col.] Chris Cunningham came in.” Standing together, with smoke in the air and soot on the altar, the two men read the Great Litany from the Book of Common Prayer. Have mercy upon us. Spare us, good Lord. Good Lord, deliver us. We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. Have mercy upon us. Grant us thy peace. O Christ, hear us. “That’s the beauty of the prayer book,” Symons said, noting that after this experience, Cunningham entered the seminary and is now associate rector at St. Peter’s Church in Purcellville, Va. A Vietnam veteran who retired from the Air Force in 1981, Symons was raised as a Presbyterian. Unchurched for many years, he was received into the Anglican Church in 1977, while serving in Tehran, by the Bishop of Iran, Hassam Delqui-Tafti. His budding faith was nurtured by chaplains at military installations from Bangkok to Kaiserslautern, Germany, he said. And upon his return to the United States, he and his wife, Susan, joined St. John’s, Norwood. As well as being an active member of his parish, Symons has served the Diocese of Washington as a Regional Convener, member of the Diocesan Council and Standing Committee and as a member of several diocesan task forces. He has been a mainstay of the Pentagon Episcopal Community for more than 10 years. Episcopalians at the Pentagon began holding services during Lent 1987, Symons said, with the Rev. Charles E. B. Gill, rector of St. Michael’s, Arlington, presiding. The mid-week services were well received, and continued after Easter, with local clergy and military chaplains stationed in the area joining the rotation. Today, the community lists 70 lay members and more than 25 clergy in its directory, and eight to 15 people regularly attend the weekly services. On Ash Wednesday this number increases dramatically, Symons said, with more than 50 people packing into the chapel for the imposition of ashes. For many years, the community was somewhat nomadic. Supplies, such as vestments, linens, wine and communion wafers, were kept in the Pentagon Chaplain’s Office and had to be collected before each service. Prayer books, Bibles and candles were stored in cardboard boxes behind the curtains in a conference room. And until 2000, when the community inherited a portable altar from the Roman Catholics, it made do with a conference table. But on April 2, 2003 – a year and a half after American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the building, killing 58 passengers, five hijackers and 124 of Symons’s colleagues – the days of roaming came to an end. The community packed up its prayer books and moved into a permanent, purpose-built location: room 1E438, an interfaith chapel built at the place where the plane struck the building. Sacred ground. This quiet room, with a piano at the back and a stained glass panel over the altar that reads, “United in Memory; September 11, 2001,” is where the community worships now. Today’s lesson, from Hebrews 11:1-16, is about the faith of Abraham, father of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The homily is given by the Rev. John Weatherly, rector of St. Mark’s, Alexandria and a reservist chaplain in the National Guard. Weatherly recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq, where he visited Ur –Abraham’s original home. He describes the patriarch’s family house, made up of “little rooms, granaries and gathering areas,” and mentions the many unfamiliar stories – some from the Koran, some from folklore – that he heard about Abraham in his native land. “Today we struggle with the fact that we are descended from the same source but we are so different,” he says. But at the end of Abraham’s long life, he adds, his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, come together to mourn their father and to prepare his body for burial. “Abraham knew that he needed God, and God knows that we need him,” Weatherly says. “Remember that we are descended from one people. God is always faithful. And after a while, all these things belong to God.” Weatherly bows his head, and in the room next door, a memorial to the victims of Sept. 11, groups of young soldiers come and go in respectful silence. [Back to index of September 2007 articles]
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